My first Panic Attack and things now.

Hi all, long time reader first time poster.

So ive been relatively carefree my entire life, besides always worrying about what other people think and ive never worried about my own health or even gotten sick that much. 

This all changed when 6 weeks ago I had my first panic attack.

Backstory, ive been smoking for 9 years and im 21 (male) now, i'd play wolf and tell my dad im sick to get off of school but thats because I was a lazy bugger and a few bullies at school scared me. Odd because now that I look back i wasn't the type to get picked on anyway.

Fast forward out of Senior Primary I moved states and was kept out of school for a year. I developed depression and smoked even more. This depression went away when I was put back in school (my Xbox helped loads too). I finished school without any anxiety that I can remember and moved on to work for my step-father. 

Thats where my problems started. He is a very controlling and vindictive man especially to someone like me whose had free-reign their whole life. 

I was constantly expected to work long hours into overtime and still entertain him on nights of drinking. This all lasted about a year under his helm.

I smoked really strong weed on a daily basis ( probably 11 - 20 bowls a day ) and it helped me cope. That coupled with a pack a day. I started losing a lot of weight which I did not even have time to notice, due to me only eating once a day (at night) and only quarter plate fulls. ( I used to be able to demolish an entire McD's sharebox on my own, I was only overweight as a kid if I can remember and I now weigh 65 kg's @ 180cm ) 

I still never had any symptoms of anxiety besides excruciating stomach pains in the early hours of the morning and being woken up randomly around 6-8 times a night.

Again I brushed all of these off as just being a normal thing, I never had time to diagnose myself or care. 

No symptoms nothing until one fateful afternoon.

I had not eaten a full meal for 2 days and had gone through my usual day of work ( or hell ) and overtime thrown in on top of that. To my pleasure however one the 2nd night I had a few beers and shots with him. He went to bed but I stayed up until the next day till around 17:00. I binge drank beers in my car alone crying until 6AM when my mother came to get me and bring me inside. She made me soup at around 12 and I wacked a few bongs and went to try get some sleep as I could feel my body was numb from the abuse I had dealt it. 

Much to my dismay my girl phoned me and we spoke for a good hour on the phone in my zombiefied state (yet sober). 

That was when I had the scariest moment in my life, out of nowhere I felt the strangest feeling in my brain, followed by my heart going crazy, the taste of death in my mouth and the feeling of death swallowing me. My hearbeat only got faster and faster and my face and arms went numb and my jaw got extremely sore, my hands also tensed up and curled into my wrist like a claw of a velociraptor which was extremely painful aswell. 

All of this was about an hour of hell but felt like a lifetime. I took my blood sugar using a test kit at home but that read error, I was promptly rushed to our GP where his machine also read error. 

He took blood and checked some things I had no clue about as well as thyroid function.

His first diagnosis was an overactive thyroid however the second tests proved that to be false.

I was prescribed calcium Gluconate, Vitamin C Supplements and Pur-Bloka(40 mg 3x a day)

I went back to him however because I got even more anxious about the Pur-Bloka as I could not feel my heart for the first time since I can remember and my BP was super low so I stopped taking it. 

I also Quit smoking immediately after that panic attack and I've been tobacco free since then (6 weeks now) as I thought that the amount i've smoked my whole life gave me a heart attack that day AND a stroke. I also have not allowed myself to get so drunk since then although I have slipped up once and regretted it the next day as out of the blue I felt like I was going to fall over and die again. 

Ever since that fateful day I have been living in hell, thinking everything is wrong with me, my liver, my heart and my brain. 

Until today.

I have read almost all the anxiety cases I can get my hands on since then and stumbled across people who swear by magnesium supplements.

I went to my local pharmacy today and picked some up, almost immediately after taking 2 pills I started feeling like the old me. I am not 100% just yet but I can tell you all that everytime an anxious thought comes to mind my brain shuts it down rather quickly. I still get what feels like my heart going into my stomach when I think dumb random thoughts but It is nowhere near as bad as it had been and Im sure that eventually once everything is balanced out again I will be 100% with no heart dips or random dumb thoughts.

I have seen the pain you are all in and I really hope this works for you like its working for me. 

PS: I cut out caffeine too which was actually harder than cigarettes. (The smell from coffee shops still drives me crazy) 

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